Joblessness and the Poor Economy Continues

Check this last set of statistics: The percentage of each past president’s cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. (You know that the private business sector is a real-life business, not a government job.) Here are the percentages.

Economy Stalls: Dismal Jobs Report as Minorities, Private Sector Take Hits

Newsmax:

The economy continued its mid-air stall on Friday as another disappointing jobs report showed that minorities and the private sector continue to take hits, leading GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to lament: “America can do better and this kick in the gut has got to end.”

U.S. employers added only 80,000 jobs in June, a third straight month of weak hiring that shows the economy is still struggling three years after the recession ended, and falling short of forecasts though a tad higher than a revised May reading of 77,000.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy added an average of just 75,000 jobs a month in the April-June quarter — one-third of the pace in the first quarter.

While most political analysts point to the economy as the number one issue on the minds of American voters in 2012, the Obama administration insisted that “there are no quick fixes” from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

“There are no quick fixes to the problems we face that were more than a decade in the making,” said White House chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger. “President Obama has proposals to create jobs by ending tax breaks for companies to ship jobs overseas and supporting state and local governments to prevent layoffs and rehire hundreds of thousands of teachers.”

For the first six months of 2012, employers added an average of just 150,000 jobs a month. That's fewer than the 161,000 average for the first half of 2011.
Job creation during the month of June wasn't enough to bring down the country's lofty 8.2 percent unemployment rate. The report appeared sure to fuel concerns that Europe's debt crisis is shifting the U.S. economy into low gear.

Hispanic and Latino unemployment continued to hover well above the national average at 11.0 percent, reports Business Insider, while the unemployment rate for white men and women was slightly lower than the national average at 7.4 percent.

African Americans were particularly hard hit by the difficult economy with 184,000 more jobless black Americans in June and an overall unemployment rate at a staggering 14.4 percent.

And, Business Insider also noted that more workers joined the federal government's disability program in June than got new jobs, according to the Social Security Administration.
In June 85,000 workers left the workforce entirely to enroll in the Social Security Disability Insurance.

Since 2009, the economy has created 2.6 million jobs while 3.1 million workers signed up for disability.

In a televised address after Friday’s numbers were released, Romney blamed President Barack Obama’s failed economic policies and lambasted the president’s “Forward” campaign slogan.

“Forward doesn’t look a lot like forward to the millions and millions of families that are struggling today in this great country. It doesn’t have to be this way,” said the GOP standard bearer. “The president doesn’t have a plan, hasn’t proposed any new ideas to get the economy going, just the same old ideas of the past that have failed. I have a plan. My plan calls for action that will get America working again and create good jobs — both near term and long term.”

Romney pointed to the stalled Keystone XL Pipeline project; the need to open new markets for American trade — particularly in Latin America — and the need to lower marginal tax rates.

“This is a time for America to choose whether they want more of the same, whether Unemployment above 8 percent month after month, after month is satisfactory or not,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. America can do better and this kick in the gut has got to end.”

Europe's debt crisis is also weighing on U.S. exports. And the scheduled expiration of tax cuts at year's end has increased uncertainty for U.S. companies, making many hesitant to hire.

Job creation is the fuel for the nation's economic growth. When more people have jobs, more consumers have money to spend — and consumer spending drives about 70 percent of the economy.

The market opened sharply lower after the jobs report was issued. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 146 points — about 1 percent — in the first hour of trading. Other stock indexes also sank.

As an employer, the government isn't helping.

The number of jobs at all levels of government fell 4,000 in June. Only local governments added jobs — and it was a scant 4,000. State governments cut 1,000 jobs. They shed 13,000 in the April-June quarter.

"In the first quarter it looked like state and local government job losses were coming to an end," says Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. "That turned out to be a temporary halt . . . Apparently, there's no end in sight."

The federal government cut 7,000 jobs in June. It hasn't added jobs since March 2011.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

The Blaze:

‘Don’t Read Too Much Into it’: June Jobs Report Marks 31st Time the White House Advises Voters to Ignore Data… Obama’s Obviously Too Worried~

After the Labor Department announced on Friday that only 80,000 jobs were added in June, the Obama administration was quick to assure voters that this is somehow a “step in the right direction” and that we shouldn’t read too much into the data.

“[I]t is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available [emphasis added],” Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger writes on the White House’s official website.

Really? We shouldn’t read too much into the Labor Department’s figures? Okay, let’s play along for a moment and agree that, yes, one monthly report does not provide enough historical data to let us conclude that the job market is doing poorly. We would need several reports spanning several months to do that.

Actually, you know what? We do have several reports and we do have months of figures. And you know what else? Krueger advising on Friday that we shouldn’t “read too much into” the Labor Department’s June report isn’t even the first time this has happened.

The White House has been telling people that they shouldn’t “read too much into” unemployment figures since November 2009! In fact, the White House has said those exact same words 30 times over the last three years.

Don’t believe us? See for yourself [via obamaisntworking.com]:

June 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.” Romney: “Another kick in the gut for middle-America families!”

May 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”

April 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”

March 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”

February 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.” Rush Slams 'Corrupt' Obama Job Stats

January 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”

December 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.” Romney responded at the time on New Jobless Numbers: Obama ‘Will Have A Hard Time Putting Perfume On This Pig’

November 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

October 2011: “The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. There is no better example than August’s jobs figure, which was initially reported at zero and in the latest revision increased to 104,000. This illustrates why the Administration always stresses it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

September 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

August 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

July 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.” Mitt Romney on jobless numbers then: 'Fire Plouffe'

June 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

May 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

April 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

March 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

February 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

January 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

December 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

November 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

October 2010: “Given the volatility in monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

September 2010: “Given the volatility in the monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

July 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains.”

August 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

June 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

May 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

April 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

March 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

January 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

November 2009: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

Naturally enough, the Romney campaign has pounced on this, turning the above list itself into an argument against the President on their website. And why not? Facts are facts, and given that the president’s staff — for almost the entirety of his first term — has treated over 30 lousy jobs reports as if each one was an isolated event and not, in fact, part of a troubling trend line, we‘d be surprised if the Romney campaign didn’t use this attack.

T. Roosevelt……………… 38%

Taft………………………….. 40%

Wilson……………………… 52%

Harding…………………….. 49%

Coolidge…………………… 48%

Hoover……………………… 42%

F. Roosevelt………………. 50%

Truman…………………….. 50%

Eisenhower……………….. 57%

Kennedy……………………. 30%

Johnson…………………….. 47%

Nixon……………………….. 53%

Ford………………………….. 42%

Carter……………………….. 32%

Reagan……………………… 56%

G. H. Bush………………… 51%

Clinton……………………… 39%

G. W. Bush……………….. 55%

Obama……………………… 08%

This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: only 8% of them have ever worked in private business! That’s right! Only eight percent; the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business?

How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he’s never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And when it’s the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They’ve spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs or as "community organizers”. They should have been in an employment line.

This one issue alone should make everyone vote for a change in the White House on November 6th 2012.  Mitt Romney is a successful businessman, who also has political experience as a governor (which is always consider better experience than having served in Congress) and he rescued the economically floundering Utah Winter Olympics.

AskMarion~

Related:

WSJ: Government Miscounting Unemployed

Women Joblessness Up 15.5% Under Obama

Economist Morici: US Job Creation Falling Far Short

US Jobs Report Reveals Struggling Economy

Obama’s Numbers Game (And Why You Should Be Concerned)

But not to worry… White House Payroll Up 14% Under Obama 

Unemployment Rate Dropped In Every State That Elected A Republican Gov. In 2010

Technorati Tags: jobless rate,jobs,joblessness,job creation,Team Obama,economics,ObamaCare,economy and money,Election 2012,incompetence

The Truth About the Economy… Obamanomics Is a Failure!

This week we found out that Team Obama was off by 2 Trillion Dollars. Hello? In ten years we will be 9 trillion dollars, not $7 trillion, in debt… and counting; and that is without so-called Healthcare reform or Cap and Trade Spending. One Trillion Dollars equals one hundred million dollars. How can you be in charge of the economy, let alone the Country, and be off by 200 hundred million dollars and claim that you know what you are doing? You can’t! You are either incompetent or lying!! Take your pick.

Also, let us remember that most of the debt doesn’t kick in until years 11 through 20.

Then, the real unemployment figures, including all the people who have dropped off the unemployment rolls, cannot find work or are working part-time… which are not part of the official government figures is between 14 and 16 %, depending who is compiling. There are counties in California that are now at 20% unemployment. What happened to the 400 million jobs saved and earned? 40% of the jobs lost are manufacturing and construction jobs that aren’t coming back. And if Cap and Tax, uh, Trade really does pass the Senate at some point, there will be more job losses. In every country where a forced green program has been implemented, there has been a loss of permanent jobs and a pretty quick turn-around loss of temporary jobs.

And the recent slight upsurge in the economy has come to us to by way off a $700+ Billion Stimulus Bill, a Cash for Clunkers Program, and huge incentives and discounts for first time home buyers, mostly buying distressed and discounted properties.

Add to this higher taxes for cigarettes, junk food and alcohol. What was that about no tax increases for people making under $250,000?

Then we are seeing utility shortages… like water in California. The government is asking Americans to cut back in use. Most have complied, if not they are fined. Then once everyone has cut back and does without, like good citizens, the government will realize that with less usage, comes lower tax intakes, which will cause them to up the prices. Then when you are finally allowed to use the normal amount again, the cost will remain at the higher rate. Explain that to the seniors living on a fixed income, many of whom have lost their nest eggs and retirement investments due to the economy, and won’t be getting a cost of living increase for the next 2-years… because fuel costs have ‘temporarily’ dropped. And don’t forget, Obama himself told us that Cap and Trade and moving to a green economy, which Australia, China, India, Spain etc have abandoned or refused to support, will up the costs of energy for all Americans.

Add this all up and it spells trouble!!!

And now Team Obama and the Dems want to add another $1 Trillion to $1.6 Trillion to the staggering debt for a Healthcare Bill that everyone is realizing won’t work and most Americans don’t want. And let remember:

• The White House was just 2 Trillion off in their debt estimates.

and

• It is impossible to cover more people, maintain or improve healthcare, and cut costs!

If you think healthcare is expensive now… wait until it is free.

Ask Marion/Marion Algier

Related Resources:

• Green Hell
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense
• The End of Prosperity
• Money Mischief
• The Housing Boom and Bust

U.S. Raises Estimate for 10-Year Deficit to $9 Trillion as Bernanke – Tapped by Obama to Continue as Fed Chairman??

Congressman John Campbell often shares his opinion(s) with his constituents when he believe the President is doing the wrong thing or when he has new information and updates. Here is today’s update:

Bernanke: As readers of this missive know, I frequently voice my opinion when I believe the President is doing the wrong thing.That has been the case with virtually everything he has done thus far. However, when he takes action that I believe to be correct or helpful, I will point that out as well. Such is the case this week when the President announced that he will reappoint Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for another 4 year term. This is a hugely important and very positive decision for the following reasons:

1. Independence: The Federal Reserve should make decisions for economic reasons and remain independent of the White House so as not to politicize those decisions. I would say this regardless who the President is. Bernanke is independent and will have been appointed by both Bush and Obama. Replacing him could have sent a sign that the Administration was trying to control the Fed which would have been a terrible message and precedent.

2. Past performance: With the benefit of hindsight, one can criticize some of Bernanke’s moves and statements during his first term. Certainly, he can be criticized for not identifying the depth of last year’s crisis sooner, among other things. But virtually none of us foresaw the severity of the crisis or offered a solution that would have prevented it. Bernanke’s swift and decisive action contributed to saving the economy from what would have been a complete collapse last October. He has done a good job so far and we should let him see the job through back to a normal economy.

3. Continuity: Markets hate uncertainty, this is particularly true now. Continuing Bernanke’s Chairmanship until January 2014 gives the markets some confidence that monetary policy will be consistent and measured towards the Fed’s mission of growth with low inflation.

4. No Debt Monetization: This is probably the single most positive sign from the Bernanke reappointment. The federal debt and deficits are huge, unsustainable, and a major risk to future economic growth. Not to mention, it continues to grow. One way to deal with these problems is to “monetize” the debt. That means that the Fed would print money and buy all the new debt issues from the Treasury rather than sell them in the marketplace. Whenever any government has done this on any meaningful scale, it has resulted in uncontrolled inflation and a precipitous decline in the value of the currency. Bernanke has been clear that he thinks this is disastrous economic policy, and he is entirely correct. But it can be a politically easy way out of the mess without raising taxes or cutting spending. But it can’t be accomplished without the Fed Chairman’s 'OK.' Make no mistake; the debt/deficit is still a huge problem. But by reappointing Chairman Bernanke, one of the worst ways to deal with it appears to be off the table. I would also argue that without debt monetization, future inflation prospects are muted somewhat.

I remain respectfully,

Congressman John Campbell
Member of Congress

----------------

U.S. Raises Estimate for 10-Year Deficit to $9 Trillion

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS – L.A. Times - Published: August 25, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, citing an economic downturn that has been deeper than it had first thought, raised its estimate on Tuesday of the government’s deficit over the next decade to $9 trillion from $7.1 trillion.

The Office of Management and Budget also said that it expected the economy to contract 2.8 percent this year, substantially more than previously estimated, and that unemployment would peak at around 10 percent.

Even as the new projections cast a shadow over efforts in Washington to steer a middle course between rekindling inflation with too much fiscal and monetary stimulus or risking another recession with too little, President Obama announced that he would nominate Ben S. Bernanke to another four-year term as Fed chairman.

The announcement was made by Mr. Obama while on vacation on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. It was aimed at maintaining an air of stability in the financial markets as the United States moved toward a recovery credited in part to unprecedented actions by the Fed to help avoid an even worse disaster.

“As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I’m sure Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for preventing another,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference also attended by Mr. Bernanke. “But because of his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity, that’s exactly what he has helped to achieve.”

On Wall Street, stocks moved higher in afternoon trading, bolstered not only by the news of Mr. Bernanke’s reappointment, but also by the release of the Case-Shiller home price index, compiled by Standard & Poor’s, which showed that home prices in 18 of 20 top U.S. metropolitan areas were beginning to inch up and new figures showing that consumer confidence had bounded back in August after slipping in July. A Conference Board survey of consumers found that fewer people said that business conditions were bad, and that consumers detected some hints of thaw in the job market.

Despite the budget shortfall, White House officials said they saw no reason to back away from President Obama’s ambitious and costly goal of overhauling the health care system. The new amount includes the cost of the health care overhaul as well as about $600 billion in additional revenue that the administration hopes to raise, two initiatives Congress has yet to approve.

“I know there are going to be some who say that this report proves that we can’t afford health reform,” said Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. But he said the opposite was true: the only way to control spiraling Medicare costs, he said, was to get control of overall health care costs by overhauling the system.

“The size of the fiscal gap is precisely why we must enact fiscally well designed health care reform now,” Mr. Orszag said.

Republicans are certain to attack that argument. Indeed, they are already doing so.

Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office put their 10-year deficit estimate slightly lower, at $7.14 trillion, though the agency uses a slightly different method to reach its number. The budget office takes into account only policies already in place, while the administration can consider policies and budget decisions that it hopes to install.

White House officials predicted that the budget deficit this year would peak at $1.58 trillion, though they said the 2009 shortfall would be about $261 billion lower than they had predicted in May. The main reason is that officials have decided that they will not need another round of bailout money for the nation’s banks. The Congressional Budget Official also estimated a deficit this year of about $1.6 trillion.

In the earlier budget forecast, administration officials had created a “placeholder” of $250 billion to cover possible costs of additional bank bailouts. They also assumed higher costs for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s expansion of deposit insurance and debt guarantees.

Even so, the administration is projecting that annual deficits will remain above $1 trillion through 2011 and will be bigger than any since World War II, even when measured conservatively as a share of the nation’s economic output.

The government’s total debt would roughly triple by 2019, to $17.5 trillion, under the new estimate, almost $2 trillion more than the White House estimated in May. Measured as a share of the nation’s economic output, public debt would hit 76.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2019 — by far the highest percentage in the past half-century — from about 56 percent this fiscal year. This year will be the first time the number has exceeded 50 percent since World War II. The previous estimate was about 67 percent.

The biggest reason for the additional red ink is the administration’s recognition that the recession has been deeper and unemployment has been much higher than White House forecasters assumed in their first budget estimate in May.

The added depth of the downturn is expected to increase payouts for unemployment benefits and other safety-net programs, while reducing tax receipts more than originally expected.

The administration had originally assumed that the economy would shrink 1.2 percent and that unemployment would average about 8.1 percent this year. Instead, the economy is expected to shrink 2.8 percent while unemployment is expected to average 9.3 percent in 2009 and 9.8 percent in 2010. The administration expects growth of 2 percent next year and 3.8 percent in 2011.

In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office expects a 2.5 percent contraction this year, followed by growth of 1.7 percent in 2010 and 3.5 percent in 2011. For the first time, administration officials officially predicted on Tuesday that unemployment would climb above 10 percent by early next year, from 9.4 percent in July.

The costs of the additional unemployment and the slower growth extend beyond the next year or two, not just because the economy will take longer to return to normal but also because the government’s interest expense will be compounding more rapidly.

Mr. Orszag estimated that, by 2019, interest expenses would account for more than 80 percent of the projected deficit of $917 billion.

Without offering any details, the White House budget director said that President Obama would soon unveil plans to reduce long-term deficits tied to soaring costs of Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs.

There are only two ways to do that:

1. Finally listen to the American People and Conservatives in Congress and dump Obamacare while over-hauling entitlement programs by attacking Fraud and major Tort Reform

(or)

2. Ration and short-change old people and people with special needs…

For gosh sakes… how long can we really believe that a government who is $2 Trillion off on their debt projection can run anything, let alone efficiently?? Now we should trust them to manage our healthcare, one-sixth of the U.S. Economy…?

Posted: Daily Thought Pad – Cross Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Warren Buffett Joins Critics on Obamanomics: Too Much Spending – Too Much Debt – Not Sustainable: Stop Spending, Stop Printing Money and No New Big

Double Dip Recession Around the Corner

Times Topics: Warren E. Buffett

IN nature, every action has consequences, a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. These consequences, moreover, are not necessarily proportional. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere may far more than double the subsequent problems for society. Realizing this, the world properly worries about greenhouse emissions.

The butterfly effect reaches into the financial world as well. Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.

To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.

They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.

The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.

To understand this threat, we need to look at where we stand historically. If we leave aside the war-impacted years of 1942 to 1946, the largest annual deficit the United States has incurred since 1920 was 6 percent of gross domestic product. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about 13 percent of G.D.P., more than twice the non-wartime record. In dollars, that equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion. Fiscally, we are in uncharted territory.

Because of this gigantic deficit, our country’s “net debt” (that is, the amount held publicly) is mushrooming. During this fiscal year, it will increase more than one percentage point per month, climbing to about 56 percent of G.D.P. from 41 percent. Admittedly, other countries, like Japan and Italy, have far higher ratios and no one can know the precise level of net debt to G.D.P. at which the United States will lose its reputation for financial integrity. But a few more years like this one and we will find out.

An increase in federal debt can be financed in three ways: borrowing from foreigners, borrowing from our own citizens or, through a roundabout process, printing money. Let’s look at the prospects for each individually — and in combination.

The current account deficit — dollars that we force-feed to the rest of the world and that must then be invested — will be $400 billion or so this year. Assume, in a relatively benign scenario, that all of this is directed by the recipients — China leads the list — to purchases of United States debt. Never mind that this all-Treasuries allocation is no sure thing: some countries may decide that purchasing American stocks, real estate or entire companies makes more sense than soaking up dollar-denominated bonds. Rumblings to that effect have recently increased.

Then take the second element of the scenario — borrowing from our own citizens. Assume that Americans save $500 billion, far above what they’ve saved recently but perhaps consistent with the changing national mood. Finally, assume that these citizens opt to put all their savings into United States Treasuries (partly through intermediaries like banks).

Even with these heroic assumptions, the Treasury will be obliged to find another $900 billion to finance the remainder of the $1.8 trillion of debt it is issuing. Washington’s printing presses will need to work overtime.

Legislators will correctly perceive that either raising taxes or cutting expenditures will threaten their re-election. To avoid this fate, they can opt for high rates of inflation, which never require a recorded vote and cannot be attributed to a specific action that any elected official takes. In fact, John Maynard Keynes long ago laid out a road map for political survival amid an economic disaster of just this sort: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.... The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

I want to emphasize that there is nothing evil or destructive in an increase in debt that is proportional to an increase in income or assets. As the resources of individuals, corporations and countries grow, each can handle more debt. The United States remains by far the most prosperous country on earth, and its debt-carrying capacity will grow in the future just as it has in the past.

But it was a wise man who said, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” We don’t want our country to evolve into the banana-republic economy described by Keynes.

Our immediate problem is to get our country back on its feet and flourishing — “whatever it takes” still makes sense. Once recovery is gained, however, Congress must end the rise in the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and keep our growth in obligations in line with our growth in resources.

Unchecked carbon emissions will likely cause icebergs to melt. Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress.

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Don't Let Obama "Devour" Your Wealth!

Obama's Dangerous "Eating Problem." Don't Let it Gobble You Up...

Dear Concerned American,

President Obama keeps lecturing about our “obesity epidemic.” But he’s the one who can’t stop eating (or smoking)!

No, not food. It’s worse! Obama is devouring the entire free-enterprise system.

In his first 100 days as president, Obama gobbled up two major automakers, wolfed down nearly 600 banks, gorged on blue-chip companies, and scarfed down the U.S. credit industry. Now he wants dessert.

President “Obama the Hungry” makes King Henry VIII look like a compulsive dieter!
I know something about overeating. It can kill you. Back when I was governor of Arkansas, I was so overweight I developed Type II diabetes. Doctors told me to lay down the knife and fork -- or else. That scared me. I cut the calories and lost 110 pounds. Only then did I regain my health.

Does bloat scare Obama? Heck no. He’s hungry for more! Fresh from gulping down $800 billion of our money to load up his Washington smorgasbord, he’s planning yet another massive banquet. Obama wants to belly up to the table and swallow the best health care system in the world. And you and I will pay the tab for this gargantuan pig-out!

As sure as heartburn follows a chili-dog, this massive “Obama-binge” will trigger hyperinflation. There’s only one way for the President to pay for this feast and you know what it is. Yes, get those presses rolling and print trillions of inflated dollars.

I’ll bet you’re thinking -- well, what can I do about it? True enough, Obama can pretty much do what he wants -- at least until the 2010 mid-term elections come along and we Americans can send him a “slim-down or else” message.

But right now, you and I need to protect the money we’ve earned and invested over the years -- before Obama’s hyperinflation chews our buying power down by multiple percentage points. This is a serious concern, believe me. It’s so serious I won’t pretend, as a politician and talk-show host, to have the answers for you. But I know someone who does.

I urge you to consider the proven financial guidance of Doug Fabian -- the renowned investing advisor who saw the financial meltdown of 2008 coming and saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of money.

Subscribers to Successful Investing, Doug’s newsletter, knew the meaning of terms like “housing bubble” and “sub-prime” long before they became headline news and the source of financial misery for millions.

This is what Doug wrote in 2006, nearly two years before the crash:

“Pay little heed to the real estate industry’s PR campaign to play down the coming housing price slump. It’s happening. The bottom is falling out for many banks, investors, and homeowners right now.”

This is what Doug is writing today:

“Never mind the endless speculation about inflation and interest rates -- they’re going up.”

Doug ’s not just warning his readers about hyperinflation, he’s steering them to investments that make money during inflationary periods. He reminds us that many fortunes were made in the 1970s when America was ravaged by high inflation and brought to the brink of collapse by Jimmy Carter -- a president eerily similar to Barack Obama.

Look, I’m no investing wizard. But I invest. I have to. So do you. Counting on Social Security while Obama is in office is a little like saying, “The Light Brigade is about to charge? Sign me up!”

But having someone with the proven know-how and track record of Doug Fabian is a comfort. That’s some track record, by the way. Successful Investing has generated double-digit annual returns for ordinary investors for 32 years and counting. Best of all, Doug does all the work for you.

Don’t just take my word. Investor’s Business Daily called Doug “one of the best market timers in the business.” And The Hulbert Financial Digest -- the watchdog of investing newsletters -- rated Doug’s trading services in the Top 10 for 2008 -- out of 186 financial publications over all.

Count on it, the “Obama-binge” will result in hyperinflation. ($800 billion in government spending makes it all but inevitable). You can’t control that. But when the day of reckoning comes, you can be one of the few whose portfolio is already adapted to profit from it. Could you ask for anything better? Well, you can. But you’ll have to wait till 2012 before we elect a new president!

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

GM May Need More U.S. Job Cuts as Buyouts Fall Short

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co.may have to cut more U.S. hourly jobs after an offer of buyouts and early retirements fell about 7,500 workers short of the reorganized automaker’s target.

The possibility of layoffs was disclosed today by Sherrie Childers Arb, a spokeswoman, in an interview after GM announced that more than 6,000 United Auto Workers members, or 11 percent of the hourly workforce, left the company on Aug. 1.

GM’s latest voluntary exits pushed the total of U.S. hourly workers leaving through buyouts and retirement offers to about 66,000 since 2006. The biggest domestic automaker is shrinking its workforce to match reductions including the shutdown of 14 U.S. plants and 3 warehouses by the end of 2011.

“It’s not surprising they didn’t reach their goal,” said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. With U.S. unemployment at 9.5 percent in June, “workers are more reluctant to accept a buyout because the prospects for other employment are more challenging.”

GM aims to eliminate 13,500 hourly positions in 2009, trimming that payroll to about 40,500 jobs, said Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman. Detroit-based GM began the year with about 61,000 U.S. hourly jobs and cut that total to about 54,000 at the end of April with buyouts and early retirements.

Moving Jobs

Any layoffs probably wouldn’t total 7,500, Childers Arb said. Some employees are likely to leave on their own or retire rather than relocate once GM shuffles work among its facilities, dropping jobs in some locations while keeping others, she said. GM hasn’t said where the job cuts will take place.

Hourly workers who took the buyout and retirement offers are receiving cash payments of $20,000 to $115,000 as well as $25,000 vehicle vouchers.

Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson is also paring the U.S. salaried workforce and chopping its eight domestic brands in half.

GM left a government-backed bankruptcy on July 10 as a new company whose largest shareholder is the U.S. Treasury. Losses at predecessor General Motors Corp. totaled $88 billion since the company last posted an annual profit in 2004.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katie Merx - in Southfield, Michigan, at kmerx@bloomberg.net

Source: Bloomberg.com

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Pulling No Punches

John McCain is red in the face and hopping mad. I’m sitting in his office in the Senate Russell Office Building, and he’s just rushed in after delivering a speech on the Senate floor where he seethed about the earmarks in the Homeland Security Bill.

“Can you believe they are putting $6 million of pork into Homeland Security?” he asks with his trademark clenched-fists. “They promised they wouldn’t do that. Ben Nelson [the Democratic senator from Nebraska] just inserted a $200,000 museum in Omaha into the legislative branch appropriations bill. These earmarks are a creeping disease. First members condemn them, then they condone, then they embrace them.” Then Mr. McCain adds, “Eight or nine Republican appropriators routinely vote for this pork.” Shaking his head he says, “It’s killing our party.”

If you thought that the senior senator from Arizona would ride off into the political sunset last November, inconsolable after losing his bid for the presidency, think again. He’s over it. And he’s as energized and spry as ever I’ve known him.

I interviewed John McCain for these pages four years ago when he was just launching his presidential campaign. Now I’m here to see how he is coping with defeat, and what his priorities are this year.

Many feared he’d become the Obama administration’s ambassador to the Republican Party, cutting deals to get things done. On the contrary: He’s emerged as one of the lead critics of Obamanomics.

He says he has worked to keep his relations with President Barack Obama “cordial,” but he pulls no punches criticizing the president’s economic policies. “Never. Never have I seen such a transfer from the private enterprise system to the government of such massive scale,” he says. He goes through the list: car companies, banks, insurance firms owned by government, and he especially grimaces when he mentions the $787 billion stimulus package.

Terry Shoffner

Not much has improved because of the stimulus. Mr. McCain scoffs, “And now, the answer is, according to the Obama economists, we didn’t spend enough.” He’s referring to the notion that we should have a second stimulus. This is not something the senator favors.

Asked about the deficits, his response is blunt. “I think it’s the biggest problem we’ve ever faced.”

Ever? “Yep,” he replies. “The only time where we amassed greater debt was during World War II, and that was temporary spending. We won the world war and then cut back. But now . . . the spending is permanent.”

“Look, this is a very popular, attractive, and eloquent president,” he continues. “But I think he was elected to govern in a centrist fashion. And instead,” he says, the administration is “governing from the far left.” Mr. McCain thinks this approach will capsize. “They don’t get that this is a right-of-center nation. Sooner or later, it becomes increasingly clear to the American people that he’s out of sync with the majority.” The latest polls are already showing some of this slippage: Mr. Obama’s favorable rating is now just over 50%, down from 70% his first weeks in office.

Will Mr. Obama ever move to the center as President Clinton did? “He will try to, but he’s got an overwhelmingly liberal Congress and his political instincts are to move to the left. It’s not an accident that he has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” he says, reciting a line from his campaign. On health-care reform, Mr. McCain calls the Pelosi bill “a fish in the sun” that smells more rotten the longer it sits. But he’s worried that this may end badly. The administration has “co-opted the hospitals, he’s co-opted the pharmacists; he’ll co-opt AMA [American Medical Association]. And by the way, if the pharmaceutical companies can save us $100 billion, why don’t they do it now? For the love of God, doesn’t this mean that they’ve been ripping us off?”

In the 2005 interview, Mr. McCain told me rather famously that “I don’t understand economics very well.” The Obama team echoed that phrase throughout the campaign. It’s still stuck in his craw, and it’s one of the first topics he brings up.

“Could I mention, Steve, that I kept hearing during the campaign the stuff about McCain being weak on economics. They obsessed about this in the media. They never said Obama is weak on economics. I came to Washington as a Reaganite limited government tax cutter.” He’s right about the media treatment. Neither candidate had a strong command of economics—certainly not Mr. Obama, as events have shown. Mr. McCain was simply being honest.

He seems perplexed that his pals in the media turned on him in 2008 after years of worshipful press treatment. “In 2000 [when he ran against George W. Bush] I used to go chat with reporters on the back of the bus, and we would have these long, pleasant conversations . . . . I was the underdog clawing my way up. But then in 2008, I noticed that it would be kind of a gotcha session with the press—a totally more hostile attitude.”

Yet conservatives had warned Mr. McCain that he would remain a media darling up until the moment he won the GOP nomination, at which time they would rip him apart. I’m only surprised that he was surprised this happened.

Mr. McCain is initially reluctant to talk about the campaign, but he provides me with snippets of what went right and wrong. He believes that he could have won the election had it not been for the market collapse in mid-September. “We were three points up on September 14. The next day the market lost 700 points and $1.2 trillion in wealth vanished, and by the end of the day we were seven points down. We lost the white college graduate voters, who became profoundly disillusioned with Republicans. And by the way, that was the way it ended up. We lost by seven points.”

He certainly was dealt a lousy hand. But I challenge him on whether he might have played that hand better. During the first days of the financial crisis, Mr. McCain looked indecisive and worse, a creature of Washington insider politics. Why did he suspend his campaign, and why did he vote for the $700 billion bank bailout plan, which was wildly unpopular with voters?

“You have no idea the pressure I was under,” he says. “I remember being on the phone with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Treasury secretary and [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke. They assure me the world financial system is going to collapse if I don’t vote for the bill. So I do the impetuous and rash thing by saying, look, I have got to go back to Washington and see how I can help. And by the way, so did Obama—but it was McCain that was the impetuous one. Obama came back to Washington.” Mr. McCain grumbles, “He was at the White House with me. But he wasn’t impetuous.” This is the only time in our interview he shows any bitterness about the campaign.

He feels he was misled by the Bush economic team. He wanted the focus of the rescue plan to be on housing and home owners under water—not the lenders or the big banks. “Paulson and Bernanke both told me on the phone, our primary focus is going to be on the housing crisis. That’s our primary focus. And then three days later they switched their whole priorities around.” Instead, the Bush administration got a $700 billion check from Congress to save banks, investment houses and eventually car companies.

Had he been president, Mr. McCain says he would have done things differently. “Small business has been ignored in this whole bailout. You know, I hate to use the word but it seems to me that the philosophy of Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke is trickle down, you know? Save Wall Street, save these financial institutions and then maybe they’ll have enough money to loan to the small business person. Wall Street seems to be doing okay. The executive salaries are fine.”

He continues: “But I just came from driving down Central Avenue in Phoenix and saw closed up storefronts because they’re too small to save, but these giant banks are too big to fail.” This is vintage John McCain, the economic populist fighting for the little guy.

If the market crash was the low point, I ask him for his best memory from the campaign. “The high point, I think, was the convention, the selection of Sarah Palin, and the enthusiasm that was generated all over the country.” His fondness for Mrs. Palin and her family strikes me as from the heart; he believes she was a net asset for the ticket.

“Let’s face it,” he says, “she galvanized our base in a way that I couldn’t. Everywhere she went she drew enormous and enthusiastic crowds like a rock star.” He says his only regret in selecting the Alaska governor was that no one on the campaign predicted the ferocity of the assaults against her. “To the liberal left, particularly the feminists, she is their worst nightmare.”

Since Mr. McCain was the co-sponsor of the McCain-Lieberman bill last year to limit CO emissions through a cap-and-trade system, I ask him about the climate change bill that passed the House last month and he surprised me with his opposition. “I believe climate change is real . . . but this 1,400-page bill is a farce. They bought every industry off—steel mills, agriculture, utilities,” he says.

So you wouldn’t vote for the House bill? “I would not only not vote for it,” he laughs, “I am opposed to it entirely, because it does damage to those of us who believe that we need to act in a rational fashion about climate change.”

A s Mr. McCain keeps circling our discussion back to fiscal responsibility, I ask him if the trillion dollar deficits are a sign that America is an empire in decline. “I think there’s a risk of that . . . unless we change. I’m a student of history. The shift in power from the British to the United States took place when the economy and the world’s gold reserves shifted and Britain went from the world’s [creditor] to a world debtor. The same thing could be happening now. I emphasize ‘could.’”

My last question is about the possibility for a 2012 rematch against Mr. Obama. “No chance,” he says.

But the good news for those who admire this maverick is that he’s likely to stay in the Senate for years and is focusing single-mindedly on holding back Obamanomics. For now, that means trying to stop budget busters like ObamaCare, but also saving a few million dollars at a time by cancelling museums in Nebraska, turtle crossings in Florida, and the endless flow of dollars to Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s airport to nowhere in Johnstown, Pa.

And then Mr. McCain is out the door—running to vote on another anti-pork amendment.

By STEPHEN MOORE - a senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal.

Newsmax Poll Shows Strong Support for Sarah Palin in 2012

An Internet poll sponsored by Newsmax.com reveals that nearly 4 out of 5 respondents would support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012.

A slightly larger majority believe the then-Alaska governor helped John McCain in the 2008 presidential race — while only 31 percent think McCain did a good job running for president.

The poll drew more than 600,000 responses, and Newsmax will provide the results to major media and share them with radio talk-show hosts across the country.

Here are the poll questions and results:

1) What is your opinion of Sarah Palin? Favorable: 83 percent Unfavorable: 17 percent

2) Do you believe Sarah Palin as a running mate helped or hurt John McCain? Helped: 80 percent Hurt: 20 percent

3) In the election between McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden, who did you vote for? McCain-Palin: 81 percent Obama-Biden: 16 percent
Other: 3 percent

4) Would you support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012? Yes: 78 percent No: 22 percent

5) Do you believe McCain did a good job running for president? Good Job: 31 percent Bad Job: 69 percent

6) Do you believe Barack Obama "bought" the White House by outspending McCain? Yes: 72 percent No: 28 percent

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Related Resources:

• We Figured Him Out - Ben Stein
• Obama Told Us This Was Coming… America Wasn’t Listening

We've Figured Him Out

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

By: Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator - on 7.24.09 @ 9:45AM

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• Obama Told Us This Was Coming… America Wasn’t Listening
• Reparations By Way of Health Care Reform
• Nobody Took Barack Obama At His Word
• Rep Conyer's Probe of Acorn Blocked by Powers That Be
• Michelle Obama Wants More Input on the Presidents Agenda
  • Michelle Obama is Building Her Boot Camps For Radicals with Tax-Payer Money
  • What’s Behind Obama’s Sudden Attempt to Fire the AmeriCorps Inspector General??
  • Plotting America's Downfall
• Acorn Cracked: Exposes ACORN’s Push for Socialized Medicine
• A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!
• ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You’re Just Not Worth It
• Op-Ed: Obama’s Census Castrates Caucasians
• Jewish Leader Banned From Obama Meeting
• Obama’s Record of Apologies and Diminishment of his Country Continues
• The Humbling of a Superpower
• The Ten Commandments According To Obama
• DeMint: U.S. Like Germany Just Before WWII
• $23.7 Trillion to Fix Financial System?
• Stop Cap and Trade - “the biggest tax in American history”
• Meet Your Science Czar – A Must Read
• Welcome to Obamaland
• The Case Against Barack Obama
• Culture of Corruption
  • Culture of Corruption Review
• American Progressivism
• Catastrophe
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense

The Ten Commandments According to Obama

After observing Obama on the campaign trail and during his first six months in office, we have concluded that our President lives and governs according to his own set of "Ten Commandments." They're certainly NOT the Ten Commandments you learned in Sunday School. In fact, many are the direct opposite! To prove that our conclusions are correct, you will find a link to source documentation for each commandment on the Patriot Update web site.

---

I. Thou shalt have no God in America, except for me. For we are no longer a Christian nation and, after all, I am the chosen One. (And like God, I do not have a birth certificate.) SOURCE

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, unless it is my face carved on Mt. Rushmore. SOURCE

III. Thou shalt not utter my middle name in vain (or in public). Only I can say Barack Hussein Obama. SOURCE

IV. Remember tax day, April 15th, to keep it holy. SOURCE

V. Honour thy father and thy mother until they are too old and sick to care for. They will cost our public-funded health-care system too much money. SOURCE

VI. Thou shalt not kill, unless you have an unwanted, unborn baby. For it would be an abomination to punish your daughter with a baby. SOURCE

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery if you are conservative or a Republican. Liberals and Democrats are hereby forgiven for all of their infidelity and immorality, but the careers of conservatives will be forever destroyed. SOURCE

VIII. Thou shalt not steal, until you've been elected to public office. Only then is it acceptable to take money from hard-working, successful citizens and give it to those who do not work, illegal immigrants, or those who do not have the motivation to better their own lives. SOURCE

IX. Thou shalt not discriminate against thy neighbor unless they are conservative, Caucasian, or Christian. SOURCE

X. Thou shalt not covet because it is simply unnecessary. I will place such a heavy tax burden on those that have achieved the American Dream that, by the end of my term as President, nobody will have any wealth or material goods left for you to covet. SOURCE

Source: PatriotUpdate.com!

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Czar Watch! Are These People? | The FOX Nation Exclusive Video

24 Czrs Are Pictured Here... Latest Count is Closer to 34. Nobody Knows Who They Are: What They Do; And Why! The Circumvent the Checks and Balances Created by the Founding Fathers and Are Accountable to No One, But Obama... Scary?? Definitley!!!

Czar Watch! FOX Nation Exclusive Video! Who Are These People? | The FOX Nation

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Related Resources:

Czarred and Feathered

4th of July TEA - Taxed Enough Already - Party Update

Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party Rallies were Held all over the Country on July 4th. Help organize a local TEA Party and keep the Movement Going!!

Duncan, OK

Obama adds 78,000 new employees to government payroll

2009 budget grows to a deficit of $1.8 trillion, more than four times higher than last year’s all time high and 50% of total budget

With the national debt already out of control, President Obama has added 78,000 new government jobs to the federal payroll since he took office. Obama’s increase in the number of government employees will add hundreds of millions of dollars to our debt. If history is any measure, these jobs will never be eliminated. They will simply add to the mountains of debt we are leaving our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Government spending is filled with pork earmarks like this: The National Institutes of Health will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Obama and Congress continue to spend money the government doesn’t have. The deficit for the current year will be $1.8 trillion, 50% of the total budget. In order to pay interest on the debt, the government will have to cut spending, raise taxes, print more paper money or borrow from another country like China, which already holds billions of U.S. debt. With no end of spending in sight, some estimates project that our national debt could reach $8 trillion by the year 2014.

Obama and liberals in Congress are taking us down the road to socialism, seizing control of key banks, insurance companies, the automobile industry, etc. They are currently working on a government funded national health care program which is expected to cost roughly $2 trillion while rationing services.

Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who:

• vote for a $500 billion tax bill without even reading it?
• are spending trillions of borrowed dollars, leaving a debt our great-grandchildren will be paying?
• consistently give special interest groups billions of dollars in earmarks to help get themselves re-elected?
• want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?
• punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?
• admit to using the financial hurt of millions as an opportunity to push their political agenda?
• run up trillions of dollars of debt and then sell that debt to countries such as China?
• want government controlled health care?
• want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
• refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
• appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
• want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?
• want to impose a carbon tax on your electricity, gas and home heating fuels?
• want to reduce your tax deductibility for charitable gifts?
• take money from your family budget to pay for their federal budget?

If so, help organize and/or participate in a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party in your community on July 4. You choose the time and the location. Use the registration form to the right.

Source: TeaParty.com

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Biden Acknowledges Administration 'Misread' The Economy

Vice President Biden acknowledged today that the administration underestimated the depth of the economic recession months ago as it prepared a recovery package that is only now beginning to take effect.

"We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package," Biden said on ABC's "This Week." "The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having distributed the bulk of the money."

Figures released last week showed that the national unemployment rate has reached 9.5 percent, and that the economy is still shedding nearly half a million jobs a month. In reality if you factor in all the people who have dropped off the unemployment roles but haven’t found work, the unemployment figure is actually at 16% and then their are two 4 other groups to factor in… people who have lost their jobs but got severance package so either haven’t hit the unemployment rolls yet or won’t qualify, people who lost their jobs over the past 3 to 4 years who gave up looking to replace their employment as the economy started its march downward, students who graduated this past year who have never found employment other than the part-time jobs they had in school, and the group which includes seniors and people who were previously out of the job market that have to go back to work because they’ve lost their investments that they counted on to supplement their incomes.

President Obama pushed through a $787 billion stimulus package within his first month in office to slow the economic slide by replacing retreating private-sector demand, in part, with government spending.

But criticism has been mounting from the left and right, albeit for different reasons, that the plan was misconceived.

Administration officials have argued for weeks that the economic projections made before Obama took office presented an overly optimistic view of the economy, a case Biden reiterated in blunt terms today.

Conservative critics have used the mounting job losses to argue that the stimulus package - a mix of government spending and tax cuts - should have been titled more toward the latter than it was.

Meanwhile, liberal economists such as Paul Krugman have argued for more public spending, just as the stimulus money begins trickling into the economy.

After acknowledging the economic "misreading," Biden said "the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we're in?"

"And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we're in," he said.

Asked if a second stimulus package is needed, Biden said it is "premature to make that judgment."

Instead, he said, the administration will monitor the effect of the government spending in the coming months, as the public-works projects financed by federal funds move from the planning stage to the hiring and construction phase.

"And so this is just starting," Biden said. "The pace of the ball is now going to increase."

By Scott Wilson

Wow… Is anyone surprised. Everyone I know could have told them this and come up with better and less intrusive solutions without all their experts, czars and Ivy League educations. The unemployment situation is much worse the administration’s figures show, the bank bailouts and stimulus plan is a failure with virtually no funds ever trickling down under Joe’s watch, nobody can get a loan and the next crisis is, created by this administrations and their unbridled spending in all areas is the next crisis. Ask Marion~

Yanina Manolova / AP

National Debt Clock... Tick Tock

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

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• President Trump? What If?
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• Catastrophe or Catastrophe CD
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense